OKC schools leader revisited parts of closure plan

Outcry prompted McDaniel to reconsider school conversion

Oklahoma City Public Schools Superintendent Sean McDaniel has retooled several components of the district's proposed restructuring project as the deadline for selecting the final option nears.

McDaniel will recommend an option for closing and reconfiguring schools at Tuesday night's school board meeting. The meeting is at 5:30 p.m. at Northeast Academy, 3100 N Kelley.

Public input prompted the superintendent and his team to take a second look at several issues contained in the three options he presented last month, spokeswoman Beth Harrison said Friday.

“After five community meetings which yielded more than 25 hours of input from our families and community, and after receiving hundreds of comments via email and on our website, OKCPS leaders spent the last few weeks looking into issues that seemed to be top-ofmind for our stakeholders, such as special education, transportation, job security for our staff, class size, safety and grade bands to name a few,” Harrison said in a statement.

McDaniel reconsidered a plan to convert Martin Luther King Elementary, 1201 NE 48, into a middle school after parents, teachers and community members voiced their concerns. Some questioned why the district would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert bathrooms, add lockers and widen the gym to accommodate older students.

“We heard from a number of different sources that we needed to re-examine the MLK-F.D. Moon middle school-elementary school scenario,” he told the board this week.

F.D. Moon Academy, 1901 NE 13, is a former middle school that would be better suited for older students but is in need of repairs, said Joyce Howard-Young, a volunteer at the school. Her granddaughter attends KIPP Reach Academy, a charter school for middle school grades that occupies the building's second floor.

“I wouldn't have a problem with Moon being a middle school,” she said. “The school is structurally sound but there are things that need to be brought up to date.”

McDaniel has pledged to “reinvent” the state's largest district by aligning facilities and resources with instructional needs. As part of the restructuring project, a minimum of 15 schools would be closed and five elementary schools would be converted into middle schools.